"Spring (Break)" in our step...

I'm happy to say that my mood is much improved from last week's blog! Danny is home for a few days (Hooray!) before he has to go back to Woodbadge, and we've had a fun and active weekend! I'm planning on having a super-fun week as well -- it is "Spring Break" at Macie's school and dance, so we are going to live it up! Today was the beginning of our Utah Spring Break Adventure. We hit the Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point, and the kids had a blast, as always. We've been several times before, and as usual, the pony rides were the highlight. Macie's favorite animal was a peacock. Reid's favorite was a cow -- the fake one that he could "milk" in the barn. I think he would've made a pretty cute cowboy. In the car on the way there, he and Macie were both practicing saying "Yee-haw!" It was adorable. I never thought I would be pleased to say that my children were acting like hicks, but it really was the cutest thing. I guess I am finally assimilating into Utah culture. Oh dear.

The rest of the week we plan on hitting the Bean Museum and library, Kangaroo Zoo, the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point (with Daddy), maybe a movie or bowling, and the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum (in SLC). Hopefully we'll have as much fun as we did today!

FHE INSTALLMENT:

Tonight we enjoyed FHE with our good friends and neighbors, the Taylors, so we didn't do Gunnell Family Accomplishments. Here's a brief summary of our week, though:

DAVIS: Cute as ever. Still has a huge gap between his teeth. Would win the Piston Cup of crawling. Who needs to walk when you can crawl that fast? Starting to sleep through the night (finally!).

REID: Mommy's big helper. Played lots of soccer and basketball this week! Very competetive in our FHE soccer game tonight. I stopped his potty-training and put him back in diapers. But I still love him.

MACIE: Wrote her very first book, coming up with the story and writing it all by herself. The only thing I did to help was assist with spelling words such as "however" and "mysterious" and "mermaid". She is so smart, I can't get over it. I'm sure that I couldn't have written a book when I was 4 years old.

ME: Met and discussed issues with several candidates for Legislature and Congress. Ran 12 miles (it's been a while since I've run that far!). Read a fair number of books. Cooked some yummy new recipes. Managed to make it through a week without seeing much of my hubby. Worked in the yard.

DANNY: Traveled to Colorado to negotiate oil deals. Excelled in Woodbadge (the hard-core scouting leadership deal that claimed him Thursday - Saturday, and that will take him away again this week.) Won his first 2 softball games of the year (a double-header late Thursday night that he got special permission to leave Woodbadge for). Set apart as YM president.

And that's about it. We also enjoyed seeing my parents for lunch and Macie's soccer game on Saturday afternoon, while they were in town for just a few short hours! We can't wait to see them and Katie and Tyler again in just 1 1/2 weeks for BYU graduation!

For our lesson tonight, we were plesantly surprised that the Taylor's also enjoy conference talk lessons. Tonight we read from Elder Bednar's talk on prayer, "Ask in Faith". Here are the winning quotes (I picked two):

"I long have been impressed with the truth that meaningful prayer requires both holy communication and consecrated work. Blessings require some effort on our part before we can obtain them, and prayer, as “a form of work, . . . is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings”. We press forward and persevere in the consecrated work of prayer,... by acting upon the things we have expressed to Heavenly Father."

"... A common element in many of our prayers is a request that the missionaries will be led to individuals and families who are prepared to receive the message of the Restoration. But ultimately it is my responsibility and your responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach. Missionaries are full-time teachers; you and I are full-time finders. And you and I as lifelong missionaries should not be praying for the full-time missionaries to do our work!
If you and I would truly pray and ask in faith, ...—if we would pray with the expectation to act and not just to express—then the work of proclaiming the gospel would move forward in a remarkable way. "